The Together Brand

Church Urban Fund (CUF) is known to many as the social action arm of the Church of England.

Our vision is of a just and flourishing society. We effect sustainable, social transformation through our three core programmes - all of which combine deep reach into local communities with effective influence at a national level.

CUF is a unique organisation. We were established 30 years ago as a response to the ‘faith in the city’ report which highlighted the growing spiritual and economic poverty in British inner cities. Since this time, we have evolved from a grant-making organisation into the multi-faceted organisation, one part of which is the Together Network

The Together Network

The Network was established by CUF in 2011 to ensure coherence, credibility and easy access to Church-based social action - as important for joint working within the Christian faith as it is for secular and statutory bodies seeking to collaborate with the Church. The Together Network includes 20 joint ventures (JVs) between CUF and dioceses working in areas of England where levels of socio-economic deprivation are highest.

The Network is a powerhouse for social change at the grassroots level and examples of its work include coordinating a town’s food banks to ensure availability across the week, recruiting volunteer teams to get night shelters up and running, providing governance and fundraising advice to start-up charities, and developing training and resources, such as accessible budgeting courses, for churches to deliver. Over the next 5 years, we hope to grow the Network by 10 JVs which would represent 75% of dioceses.

The challenge

However, our key challenge is that not enough people know about the Together Network. We need to reach new audiences and clarify our brand. This will be achieved by reflecting on our vision, the sector we work in, our unique role, the diverse stakeholders with whom we work and audiences we wish to reach.

We feel a key part of the solution is to employ a Brand Manager – a new role which has been made possible thanks to the generous support of Allchurches Trust. This partnership is underpinned by our shared commitment to advancing ‘faith in action’ across England.

We envision the ‘Together’ brand evolving to reflect a progressive Christian message based upon personal dignity, human agency, social equality, service to others or ‘faith in action’. The people we wish to engage with may be seeking to deepen their spiritual vocation in service to others – specifically, the most vulnerable.

We work to bring people together who are near neighbours in communities that are religiously and ethnically diverse, so that they can get to know each other better, build relationships of trust and collaborate together on initiatives that improve the local community they live in.

The Together Network aims to develop capacity for action at a local level, and to inform, inspire, resource and support local churches and organisations,as they work to address issues of social justice and relationships between communities.